To become good at any sport requires a lot of practice, but having other players or a coach during that practice is not always available for all athletes, especially for baseball pitching. For pitching, there would need to be a pitcher, a catcher, and preferably a batter and a coach.
Baseball pitching is not an easy skill to master and requires both the combination of the physical and visual accuracy of placing a ball within a certain area called the strike zone. In baseball, the strike zone is defined as the area (as between the shoulders and knees of a batter in his natural stance) over home plate through which a pitched baseball must pass to be called a strike. See Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary.
The visual component of baseball is even greater because the pitcher is not just throwing a ball at his teammate and catcher, but the pitcher is trying to get a batter or batsman out on any combination of three strikes or three swings. In particular, with the younger athletes, there always is the inherent fear of hitting the batter. Instead of concentrating on the physical mechanics and also the placement of the pitch within the strike zone, younger athletes can become fearful, apprehensive or distracted with hitting the batter.
Many coaches in Little League and other youth baseball leagues have employed use of a bat standing on one end or a tee-ball stand to simulate a batter in the batting box. However, a bat or a tee ball stand is not going to replace a real person or a batter. Other devices in the prior art have been inflatable figures or dolls, but these devices to not provide a proper target for the pitcher to visualize the strike zone.
Another problem with current devices is their large size (gigantic in some cases) and bulk and weight. These size problems make it very difficult to assemble and disassemble on the playing field and for transportation. For example, inflatable targets or simulated batters are just cumbersome to set up and to operate on the playing field. These current devices to not disassemble or break down easily and make it difficult for younger athletes, such as an eight year old Little League player to use and to use consistently. From the preceding descriptions, it is apparent that the devices currently being used have significant disadvantages. Thus, important aspects of the technology used in the field of invention remain amenable to useful refinement.